coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

from the Cardiff district. All the Cardiff shipments
yvere carried in Chilean transports, and no
local freight quotations are to be found. Much
that yvent from ports outside the Cardiff district
was carried in sailing vessels which brought back
nitrates. Freights from the United Kingdom to
Chile for coal averaged in 1913, $4.94 per long ton.
The minimum-wage act has now been in practical
operation for one and one-half years. This
law provided for the fixing of minimum yvages
for the different c-lases of employes in ancl about
coal mines in the different coal fields of the United
Kingdom. A leading trades unionist states
that in 1912, before the passage of the act, a
small percentage of skilled miners in the South
Wales field earned less than $1 per day, that 5
per cent, earned less than $1.20 per day, 15 per
cent, less than $1.45 per day, and 34 per cent.
less than $1.70 per day. After the act yvas
IX FULL WORKING ORDER,
he states that every skilled miner received a minimum
wage of $1.78 per day.
The act, of course, applies to such skilled miner
only when working in an abnormal place where,
ownig to geographical conditions, he could not
extract the normal daily quantity. Such skilled
miner, working under favorable conditions, has
been able to earn throughout the whole of the year
from $20 to $30 per week, but miners claim that
such earnings are exceptional.
WORKMEN SAID TO PREFER LEISURE TO MORE WAGES.
At the annual meeting of the Poyvell Duffryn
Mining Co., the managing director expressed disappointment
that tlie output from the company's
properties had only been 3,800,000 tons, whereas
they had expected 4,000,000. It is stated locally
that the expected results were not obtained because
a percentage of miners did not present themselves
regularly for work throughout the long
and pleasant summer. The chairman of the Cambrian
Co. stated publicly that he thought it was
the general experience in the coal field that in
good times workmen preferred greater leisure
rather than more wages.
The minimum-wage act, hoyvever, was drafted
and passed for the advantage of the lower-paid
day worker, for whom an average weekly wage
before the passing of the act was $6.19, raised by
tbe act to $6.91. and is now over $7.
ANTICIPATED INDUSTRIAL UPHEAVAL.
It is admitted by labor leaders that the existing
and anticipated quiet of the current year is
largely preparation for a coming great struggle.
Labor energies are concentrated on strengthening
its numerical and financial forces to meet special
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49
conditions which will arise at the end of 1914
and in the early months of 1915.
For the first time in the history of coal mining,
all agreements between labor and capital throughout
Great Britain end at the same time. So also
do agreements between the railways and their
employes. The minimum-wage act, passed in
1912 for two years, expires by its oyvn terms.
The Miners' Federation and the various railway
unions are expected to render mutual support in
si curing their respective demands. Miners' representatives
openly refer to the coining upheaval
as a bigger industrial upheaval than the country
has ever witnessed.
I CONSTRUCTION and DEVELOPMENT (
Messrs. John F. Phillips and Charles D. Robinson,
of Fairmont, W. Va., ancl Senator A. Hood
Phillips will develop a tract of 100 acres of Pittsburgh
coal on the B. & O. railroad between Rosemont
and Flemington. The tract is oyvned by
Col. John T. McGrayv of Grafton. It is expected
to have the tipple and power house completed
and the mine in operation by July 1. The plant,
when working full, will have a capacity of from
500 to 700 tons a day.
The Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. built a coal
washery of wood construction at their Aliquippa
works. Pennsylvania, in July. 1913. This washery
yvas burned January 6, 1914, and has been reconstructed
of steel and concrete and put into
operation in 54 days from the time the re-construction
work started. The Link-Belt Co. of
Chicago designed and built both washeries.
The Bunsen Coal Co. has appropriated $250,000
for a new mine to be sunk near Georgetown, 111.,
ancl announces that sinking the shaft will be
started within the next two weeks. Its capacity,
4.000 tons a day, will be greater than that of any
other mine in the Danville district.
The Durham Coal & Iron Co. has authorized the
immediate building of by-product coke ovens in
Chattanooga, Tenn. The ovens will be built in
blocks of 30 and 60 with a view of adding to them
in the future. The initial outlay will be in the
neighborhood of $1,000,000.
The Clarkson Coal Co.. Duluth. Minn., has announced
that it will add 400 feet to its dock in
the harbor at that city, to give it better facilities
for handling coal.
Earl McConaughy and L. Ross, of Logan, W.
Va.. who recently purchased SOO acres of coal land
near that place will develop the property at once.